ISP Subscriptions and the Right To Privacy

The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that, under the Constitution of the (great) state of New Jersey, "citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the subscriber information they provide to Internet service providers." The opinion was unanimous.

The decision, State of New Jersey v. Shirley Reid, concerned a disgruntled employee's (Reid's) abuse of her employer's computers. Someone changed passwords on a system remotely. Armed with the IP address of the remote user and the employer's assertion that Reid was the only one with the requisite knowledge of the systems to perform the change, the police obtained the subscriber information associated with that address from Comcast under a Municipal subpoena. The subpoena was defective for using the case name "Timothy C. Wilson, Plaintiff, vs. Shirley Reed [sic], Defendant" (Wilson was her employer), even though no such case pending.

The court held the seizure of the information unreasonable under the New Jersey Constitution which reads, in the relevant section (Article I, Section 7):

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue except upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the papers and things to be seized.

Interestingly, the opinion notes that Federal Courts have not found such a right with respect to ISP subscription data, but that New Jersey law has been stronger in it's protections of consumer subscription data. It also noted that the police could still obtain the data through legitimate procedures, specifically a grand jury subpoena.

If you don't like the weak protections available in Federal courts, you can always move to New Jersey. Our real estate prices could use your support.

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